Golden as a Caesar, wilder than a scoundrel
by flesh and bone telephone
Summary: Her locks tumble free of the jewelled pin as it snaps like glass in his hands. — Caroline, a dance, and the devil.


**disclaimer**: dude, don't own the tv series. used to be a reluctant fan, but am now fulltime into it!  
><strong>dedication<strong>: for those people who've been shipping caroline/klaus since he first showed his sexy self on the screen, even before they had scenes with eachother; it just goes to show that crack ships aren't as crack as you may think. i'm so happy! i've been shipping these idiots for ages! ages i tell you!  
><strong>warning:<strong> first time writing for vd. also, kind of teaser spoilers for episode 14 (which i haven't watched) because i'm told there's a ballroom scene. i had to write the action for that, can you blame me?  
><strong>notes<strong>: obviously nothing is going to be spot on. this was all sort of rushed. i was writing another caroline/klaus scene that sort of just got scrapped because it wasn't working for me and then wrote a whole new scene because of the inspiration the teasers offered.  
><strong>fun fact:<strong> reviewing motivates me alot, i'm more productive when i know what people think of what i write, and if they enjoy it or hate ir. either way, there's nothing a writer loves more than a little feedback!

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><p>The ease of the way his hand slips onto the small of her back is unnerving, fingertips poised against her skin. She imagines tiny blood vessels pulsing golden death at the ends of them. Caroline is at the mercy of his Midas touch, the golden way Klaus can make a person feel before he shuts you down completely. She barely has a moment to realise that he's leading her out to the dance floor, and by the time she does, it's already too late. He's already too close. Looking into her eyes.<p>

He's dazzling, a gentleman in every way. She imagines lovers on silver screens, broadway glamour, the old noir and Nicky Arnesteins in Funny Girl and wants to laugh at the absurdity of her thoughts. He is not a good man, having even a tiny glimpse of humanity does _not_ cancel out the bad and Klaus is as dangerous as they come.

His fingers on her skin, close enough to carress, close enough to wrench away her spine. Caroline swallows, and manages to look back levelly, blue eyes steady on his dark ones. "I didn't hear you asking me to dance."

"I didn't hear you refusing," he murmurs back. It makes something quell and writhe uncomfortably in her, makes her feel constricted and yet exhilerated at the same time. "So I guess we're even."

He leads her about the room, in slow lazy circles, and she thinks that this - _this_ is what grace looks like. Glittering under chandelier lights, cutthroats dancing with their prey. She takes a breath, tries not to shudder, but he knows - Klaus _thrives_ on knowing the effects he has on others. "Nice party," Caroline says with cold politeness, as if being in his arms doesn't drive the blood straight to her heart and away from her head. "I hate it."

"After I tried so hard to impress?" Klaus replies with bland sarcasm.

"I don't even want to know what the set up's for, everyone knows that Mystic Fall's occasions are always a cover up for some nefarious stupidity." Caroline says, snappy. "And I can't imagine why you'd want to dance with me."

"Why not?"

He presses closer, she can _breathe_ him, the warm scent of blood and pine on his skin. Caroline feels the goosebumps prickle all over her skin, eyes falling onto those twisting lips. "Dimples." she whispers suddenly, angry.

It's the last thing he's expected her to say. "Excuse me?"

"Dimples," she grits when his fingers rub circles on her skin, electricity rushing through her veins. "How dare you. Lunatics have no right to have dimples."

"Ah, you find me attractive." He mocks, amused by her incredulousness. "You're not hard on the eyes either."

The blood rushes anew in her cheeks, Caroline knows she looks good, she _knows_ she's beautiful. All silver and dazzling blue, gloves drawn up to her elbows like a lady at an opera. But Klaus remarks it like it's a fact. She doesn't know how to feel about that.

"You didn't save me." she blurts hastily. "I don't owe you anything. You just...You just cleaned up."

"Fair enough." smooth as silk, he moves like an angel. A wicked wicked thing it is for god to have made villains with beautiful faces. "You didn't wear the present."

"I threw it in the river."

"Did you now?"

She gasps, his head lowers, he's too close now. Her fingers fall from his shoulders, clutch at the front of his shirt. Her heart races, and Caroline is ready to bolt, except both his hands tug at her back, anchoring her in place. She thinks he might kiss her, or that he _wants_ her to think that he might. Klaus plays with his food all the time and Caroline will never be anything but a pawn in his eyes. There are a thousand eyes watching her in that one glance, his fingers press, sooth, curl and if her breathing comes fast its because she is, more than anything, terrified. "You're a good liar, Caroline -" he has no _right_ to say her name, not so familiarly, he has no - "but you're not good enough a liar to fool me."

Damon, Elena, Stephan, _everyone_ - they're all somewhere in the room. She can't for the life of her imagine what they're thinking. He's the man who murdered Jena, the monster who covets his siblings behind coffins in a way some may collect porcelain dolls and place them behind glass cabinets, a cold wild thing that is far far beyond anything she could offer. He's not Stephan, not Damon, not the cliche bad boy who's misunderstood, or the anti-hero with the heart of gold, he's Niklaus. Niklaus the Original who didn't hesitate slicing your life up and tearing everything you knew apart at the seams, he's irredeamable, inconsolable, and devastatingly _mad._

The song ends, and she pries herself away with as much indifferent grace as she can manage. Caroline's head is dizzy, her eyes are bright with confusion, anger at the warmth he'd exuded. She can't fix him, she doesn't _want_ to. She won't have it. It's the kind of bullshit cliche that the Elenas of the world monopolise. He ruined Tyler, he's ruined _everything._ Her hands clamp in her shawl so he can't see them shaking. But Klaus has sharp eyes, very sharp eyes. "Goodnight."

She wades past through the crowds and it's as easy as barrelling upriver. Caroline doesn't dare look back, smiling shakily in her quickly constructed confidence. The evening is beautiful, something out of the dream, flowing gowns and bursts of colour swirling around the black sharp suits of the men. Something out of some bizzarre story book scenario the old-Caroline would have given anything to dwell in. A different era, a flashy time of lazy royalty and lofty courts. It's all outside her.

She pushes past the doors, fingers shaky around her keys. She can't bear to be there anymore.

But he's there in the car park, leaning against her baby with that prowling feline grace of his. "Leaving so early?"

"The song ended." Caroline says, trying not to look at him.

"No," he growls, straightening up so abruptly that Caroline has to tell herself not to step away. "You don't understand do you? I'm not going to play the nice gentlemanly chap with you, girl. Leaving early is unacceptably rude."

He's too beautiful, angry and unbanked, like old rage and blood feuds that seethe with a millenum old vengeance. A history she can't bear to touch. "What do you want _now_?"

"Oh darling, you don't go until I _tell_ you to go."

"Don't even - you can't _tell_ me what to do, or when to leave. I don't _want_ you around me!" she hisses, all the insecurity and fear and anger soaring up inside her again when she looks into the dark murder of his eyes. "I don't _want_ you in my house, I don't _want_ you around my friends, and I certainly don't want anything to _do_ with you."

Klaus spits sarcasticaly, "Sounds like a bloody invitation to me." and he _grabs_ her by her bright, golden hair kissing her so unexpectedly that Caroline forgets to think.

He twists, pins her against the cold metal body of her own car with a violent ease that speaks volumes. Pins her like a fluttering butterfly to a board. Body pressed hot against hers, rock hard, immovable. All lithe muscle and quivering tendons. He could break her, she knows. He could break her clean in half and leave her on the floor. But his hands are making tingles on her skin, pulling her flush against him, searing _everywhere_, bearing down on her like a force of nature.

Caroline gasps against his lips. Her locks tumble free of the jewelled pin as it snaps like glass in his hands. With this...this raw kind of _domination_ in his rough consumption of her, she feels like she's being filled with light yet being bled dry, all at once. _Midas touch_, she remembers, but doesn't have the mind to stop him. She winds her fingers through his wheat yellow hair, he looks like a Caesar, even in the dark, an Alexander of ages long gone. She has centuries of him within her grasp but out of her reach, and then Caroline feels his mouth on her throat, her eyes flutter and she feels too close to fainting dead away.

The way he kisses her - the _way_ he kisses her, handling her as recklessly as a stormlord; all the protection in the world couldn't stop him from hurting her if he wanted to.

Caroline _allows_ him, as much as he _thinks_ he's in control. That's why, when he comes back to her lips again, mouth sliding hotly against hers she allows herself to remember _exactly_ who he is and exactly who she herself is. She digs her fingers into his scalp and pulls, too sharply to be anything but painful but his face falls back with a sharp slant of a smile, still pressed bodily against her. Pleased by her racing pulse, her uneven breath. She wants him. Caroline has no idea why she can't stop that, wanting him.

His eyes are impossibly more vibrant, his breathing heavy, laboured. _She's_ done that, she realises. _I'm not the only one crazy here._

And then, _he wants me._

She wants to slap him. His hands are still clamped around her hips, palms hot on the material of her dress as it had been climping up her thighs. "You shouldn't have done that."

His grip tightens inexorably, his eyes green and dark. "Even when you spit and rage, you encourage. You _invite_."

"Don't mess around with me!" Caroline tries to clear the dizzy haze from her eyes, and he pulls away, touch slipping off her as he takes a step back. The night is dark, inky around her, and her body is a hum of warm blood. She feels like she's run miles and gone nowhere. "You shouldn't..."

His hands are at ease, sat lazily in his pockets, he's tall even with the line of his shoulders slouched. His eyes are still on her, every inch of skin, on the golden tumble of her hair, on her eyes and lips and - Caroline presses a hand against her throat, tries to get her breathing in order. "...You shouldn't have kissed me."

Klaus's eyes burn on her, his retort is simple. "You shouldnt have worn that dress."

Caroline doesn't dare react to that, instead she picks up the silver keys spilled on the grass slowly and shakily. She unlocks the door and pulls it open, half expecting, _dreading_ him to follow her home with the same dogged arrogance. For a terrifying moment, with her back turned, she imagines his breath in her hair.

He watches her closely when she twists the key and the engine thrums alive. Watches her even when she's long left the compound.

And in the dark of her car she feels him, like the kiss of a blade against her skin, all the way home.

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**end note:** okay, i'm aware of the overused cliche of 'i hate you, i hate you, i hate you OH MY GOD JUST KISS ME'. which i hope isn't what happened here. also, i've been experimenting with sexiness over the past few pieces i've written, so i'm still relatively new to writing such scenes. forgive me. i kind of had fun, despite the dolorous effort of writing such tiresome long dialogue. building sexual tension isn't as easy as one might think, actualy.


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